


The Makings of Fire

by the_rck



Series: Nothing Until I Happen [2]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captivity, Emotional Manipulation, Family, Gen, Intrigue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 03:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13849200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Luke had luxurious accommodations on Vader’s ship. The suite had apparently once belonged to a high official. Luke had overheard enough to know that the man had somehow recently offended Vader and that so much as saying his name might be dangerous. Luke had decided not to pursue the subject. Knowing that Vader would kill wasn’t new information, and none of the people he could overhear actually knew why.Asking the one person who definitely knew seemed unwise.Luke really hoped it wasn’t just so that Luke could have a nicer prison than what they’d likely given Old Ben.





	The Makings of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Simon Armitage's “Prometheus.”
> 
> This story likely won't make much sense if you haven't read "A Mouthful of Air."
> 
> Thanks to Merfilly for beta reading.

The leaning on people part of using the Force was so easy that Luke wondered how he’d never thought to do it before. He had it, simple as breathing, by the time he’d been three days as Vader’s ‘guest.’ As far as Luke could tell, the Force was just another term for the thing that told him sandstorms were coming or that the ground ahead was a brittle crust over a deep pit and that made shooting womp rats or racing through Beggar’s Canyon easier for him than for his friends.

Luke was kind of looking forward to finding out what else he could do with the Force.

Luke had luxurious accommodations on Vader’s ship. The suite had apparently once belonged to a high official. Luke had overheard enough to know that the man had somehow recently offended Vader and that so much as saying his name might be dangerous. Luke had decided not to pursue the subject. Knowing that Vader would kill wasn’t new information, and none of the people he could overhear actually knew why.

Asking the one person who definitely knew seemed unwise. 

Luke really hoped it wasn’t just so that Luke could have a nicer prison than what they’d likely given Old Ben or the barracks housing the other teenagers from Tatooine. Vader had taken them in order to hide Luke and then… made Luke obviously different by imprisoning him separately. Luke wasn’t sure if Vader simply hadn’t noticed the problem or if Vader had changed his mind.

Asking about that also seemed unwise, but the situation didn’t make Luke more optimistic about anything that might be coming.

The man who had almost certainly once been Anakin Skywalker was entirely willing to threaten Luke but also very much wanted him to feel safe. That Vader seemed to believe sincerely that those two things were compatible told Luke that Vader had the same good judgment as the proverbial man with no water hiking to a well he knew was dry.

Except that Vader’s bad judgment on that issue wasn’t quite so obviously suicidal without context. Luke wasn’t sure if he wasn’t supposed to notice the mismatches or if he was supposed to look for a way to use them. He hadn’t forgotten Aunt Beru’s warning about Vader wanting to make Luke like him.

Luke was pretty certain she hadn’t been talking about the big black suit.

From what Luke overheard, they’d stayed longer at Tatooine than expected and were now searching a system Luke had never heard of for some sort of automated Rebel communications hub. Luke suspected the item in question was entirely fictitious, but he wasn’t going to ask Vader about that, either.

The urgency with which Vader was working to teach Luke about the Force really answered most of Luke’s questions anyway.

The second use of the Force that Vader taught Luke was much harder than the first-- how to camouflage his presence in the Force so that all searching senses would simply slip past him and not notice he was there. If he did it right, he could be caught on camera and still be overlooked. It was complicated and subtle and learning it was a lot like trying to figure out how to repair a droid without knowing that circuitry existed let alone what it was for. Vader making this the second lesson underlined the risks Luke ran if the wrong people noticed him. Even if Vader was reluctant to define who ‘the wrong people’ might be.

“Neither Jedi nor Sith take this route as a general rule, and I am not supposed to know it.” There were several seconds when the rasp of Vader’s breathing was the only sound. “Too much knowledge of concealment means too much chance of slipping the leash. Anyone who teaches you anything-- including me-- will be tethering you to themselves.” Vader put a hand on Luke’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “You already knew that about me.”

Luke nodded because he hadn’t forgotten the threats against Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. He wasn’t going to, not even if he learned this lesson well enough for running to be a choice.

Vader knew it. He was counting on it.

Luke studied Vader’s mask and tried to imagine the face behind it. “You want me to want to stay.” He put certainty into the words even though he suspected that his wishes in that direction weren’t so much salt as greelanth. Without salt, people died. Without greelanth… The food was still nourishing; it just didn’t taste as good.

Vader would try to keep Luke even if he had to lock him up as thoroughly as the Stormtroopers had Ben Kenobi.

“I would like you to want to.” One of Vader’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “There is no necessity for it.”

Luke kept his eyes on the part of the mask where Vader’s eyes ought to be for as long as he could. When he looked away, he sighed. He reached inside himself, looking for the right words. “The old man,” he said softly, “does he know things that I will need to? Things you can’t teach me, I mean.” He wasn’t at all certain that Vader would consider it.

“He knows what happened to your mother.” The depth of bitterness and cold rage in Vader’s voice surprised Luke and made his bones ache.

For a moment, Luke remembered being a child alone and terrified and having only one person who might offer safety. Kenobi looked so very much younger, so very potentially fragile, just three steps from walking away entirely. And one day, he had. 

Luke couldn’t quite keep from flinching at the flash of burning pain in that not-quite memory-- devouring burning that went far beyond the worst sunburn Luke had ever had. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

“I apologize, Luke.” Vader’s sincerity came more through the Force than through his words. “You must have wondered.”

Luke didn’t realize for a second or two that Vader wasn’t apologizing for the burning.

Vader didn’t-- mustn’t-- know what Luke was remembering. Vader would try to keep all of that from Luke, and Luke needed to know.

“I…” Luke didn’t entirely understand the thing about his mother himself. “I wasn’t _allowed_ to. That-- No one back home ever even asked about her or mentioned that I must have had a mother.” He was pretty sure that Vader knew enough of Tatooine to understand how deeply wrong that was. 

Luke felt the ripple of icy fire that was Vader moving in the Force.

“Ah. Yes. We will need to extract that technique from Kenobi’s mind.”

Because it might protect Luke from the threat or threats that Vader anticipated. It was a more powerful way of not being seen or remembered.

Luke swallowed and tried to center himself. So much of what he was doing now felt like he was repeatedly leaping over a sarlacc pit. If he misjudged or slipped, he wasn’t likely to get back out again. “Let me ask him.” He could feel the see-saw of possibilities as Vader considered that.

Finally, Vader nodded. “Tell him that, if he’s useful to you, I will consider not repaying pain for pain.”

Luke made himself smile as he mentally stepped around a memory of physical agony and psychological anguish in order to see a landscape of rock and fire. He had no idea where the place was. Nowhere on Tatooine looked like that, and there were so many planets in the galaxy that he needed a lot more information to guess which one might hold such a location.

“He knows well enough what I’m capable of.”

Luke heard the warning in those words and knew it was meant for him. He did his best not to let his fear show in his body or in the Force. Both were getting easier, but neither meant not actually being afraid. “I won’t forget, either.”

“Better, not to.” Vader didn’t sound at all disturbed by the idea that Luke might fear him. He turned his back on Luke and took three steps away. “There’s something else you want, isn’t there?”

Luke was a little startled because he hadn’t quite gotten to the point of realizing there might be. “The food’s good,” he said. “It’s weird washing with water, seems wasteful.” The air was too humid. The large suite felt empty and very much not his in spite of his things scattered throughout. He wasn’t bored, not with all of the options Vader had given him for entertainment. Well, learning that looked like entertainment.

After a moment, Luke said, “It’s hard… being so alone, I mean. I can’t talk to-- really talk to-- anyone but you.” Part of his mind was horrified by where he seemed to be going, but part of his mind knew that there was a reason that wasn’t selfish or cruel, that wouldn’t make Aunt Beru disown him. “That girl-- the one in the message-- She was really pretty, and I--” He felt himself redden.

He really hoped she wasn’t already dead. She didn’t weigh even a grain of sand against his aunt and uncle, but if she was Vader’s prisoner, too, she was in much deeper trouble than Luke was.

Vader started to laugh. “You can certainly meet her. If you still want her at that point--” He shrugged. “--we have what we need from her. Enough of it, anyway. Her life is forfeit for treason, and that death would not be a quick one. If it would please you, she can be yours.”

Luke smiled and pretended that his body wasn’t trying to turn itself inside out in horror and disgust. Lying to Vader about things that made him ill with revulsion had already become routine.

“If she’s… not what you want, we can find someone else to keep you company. It will just take a little longer. Not all worlds have slave markets, and this ship seldom has prisoners near your age. The Princess would be… convenient. There are any number of reasons I might kill her, so even my Master won’t question it if I say I have.”

Luke didn’t want to remind Vader of the others from Tatooine, not if he’d forgotten them to that extent-- none of them were slated for execution, at least-- so he focused instead on how much he hated hearing Vader speak of his master. Each time Vader did, Luke felt something like what he imagined an eclipse must be. Everything was still there, but it was all much harder to see properly, and the air felt wrong.

Vader caught that response because Luke was too busy hiding his real feelings about the Princess. Vader brushed a finger over Luke’s cheek. “He shall not have you. Whatever that takes. And you shall have anything-- everything-- I can give you. I failed your mother. I will not fail you.”

And that, Luke knew, was going to be the real difficulty in remaining hidden. Vader was powerful. Vader was smart. Vader was painfully straightforward in pursuit of his ends. Concealing Luke as well as he’d done so far was more a matter of luck, constant improvisation, and brute force use of the Force than of any sort of skill in long term deception and planning.

Luke was almost certain that Vader didn’t realize that weakness existed which meant, in turn, that Luke was going to have to learn as much as he could in the time he had. Eventually, someone outside of Vader’s reach was going to notice. Then there’d be an official record and someone asking why. If Luke couldn’t cover their weak points, everything was going to collapse, and he still had nothing but air in his pack.

Luke’s need for information, quite apart from any sympathy or attraction he might feel for her, made Princess Leia Organa a desirable companion. If she didn’t know more about the wider universe than Luke did and see it from a different angle than Vader did, Luke would find a way home just to eat his landspeeder. The trick would be making her an ally.

Which pretty definitely didn’t involve any of the things Vader thought Luke wanted to do.

Vader might understand that part if Luke explained it, but Luke was almost certain that Vader’s response would involve explosions and death on a direct path toward whatever Vader thought was the biggest threat.

The files Vader had let Luke access had more information about history than Luke could ever hope to skim. Luck and prayer weren’t going to be enough to help him understand what he needed to, so he’d mostly focused on Kenobi, Skywalker, Organa, and Vader as potentially manageable search terms and had taken notes on the things each name brought up that sounded important, worthy of more research.

He had to start somewhere.

Luke could learn anything if it might keep his aunt and uncle safe.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not planning to take this to a Luke/Leia place. Stories sometimes end up laughing at my intentions, but I suspect that this series will stay gen and T rated.


End file.
